note Vynce <P> well, i actually said $y*1 to force that into a numerical context. if you don't, then what if $x is 5 and $y is 'foo'? </P> <CODE> bash-2.04$ perl -e 'print 5 % foo' Illegal modulus zero at -e line 1. </CODE> so... <CODE> bash-2.04$ perl -e '$x = 5; $y = "foo"; print ($y ? $x % $y : $x); print "\n"' Illegal modulus zero at -e line 1. bash-2.04$ perl -e '$x = 5; $y = "foo"; print ($y*1 ? $x % $y : 0); print "\n"' 0 bash-2.04$ perl -e '$x = 5; $y = "foo"; print (($y*1) ? $x % $y : $x); print "\n"' 5 </CODE> <P> as you can see, one still generates an error. as for what to return if $y is zero, i had misread your original statement. </P> . 87384 87652